Evening everyone. Mike is now in Mexico enjoying a well earned break with the Fam which means it's all Chris all the time on youtube for the next ten days. First up we're taking a look at FF14's endgame. As many of you know Mike has had a lot to say about WoW's systems - so when Mike stepped into Bozja at the stream audience's request; well suffice to say he was surprised to see the zone had pretty much everything he has wanted from WoW's endgame in spades, and none of it is MANDATORY.
@@krae6695 He is away for 10 days starting this Wednesday, so he should return next Friday. Unless he does something on the weekend, stream should resume on the 28th.
The fastest way to make someone not want to do something is to tell them they have to. The moment it stops being a choice, even if it's fun, it gains an element of being a burden.
this is huge for me...any time i'm going to do something, especially if it's not fun, it HAS to be my choice. the moment someone tells me to do it, i no longer want to
This kind of describes my relationship with battle passes. I've always wondered why I have this weird relationship with them where I'll buy it in a spurt of commitment to the game and then within a few days I stop playing it because when I fire up my console the thought isn't "what should I play" it's "I guess I have to play Apex Legends". I immediately resent that feeling.
I only really feel this way usually when the mandatory part is time related. Like if its fun idc if its mandatory...as long as i can do it whenever i want at whatever pace i want without somehow being negatively impacted about that.
I can live through Red Chocabo, but I hate the Rise of the Robots. Between a very fast spinning boss with a wide aoe, that if you get hit will likely kill you. Then you get the math problems, then you are at 5 health, but your healer is dead. Which is a particular pain since healers are painful to level in there. Even with Aetherwave you aren't as healer doing enough damage to get full xp from fates, so you group up. But groups fall apart quick because dps and tanks don't 'need' a healer most of the time. As a main healer, I am surprised there is as many healers in there as there is.
Another note about Bozja, changes were made going from Southern Front to Zadnor based on community feedback, such as the inclusion on notoriety. Smaller changes were also periodically made like the timer to queue up for CLL and Dal being increased to 6 min so people had more of a heads up so they could plan skirmishes and Critical engagements more and not get stuck in the middle of a fight and miss the queue. It was really nice to see player feedback incorporated into the game throughout Bozja's life cycle.
@@kuronaialtani Part of that is a real fix to a problem but other parts are also planned. As time passes, grinds are deliberately made easier to allow people to catch up.
I'm so happy for Mike. It doesn't matter if FFXIV doesn't end up being his main MMO after he's caught up with EW. The amount of fun he had and still has is a joy to watch. I would like to believe that this game had a very positive impact on his life and health.
I feel like he's going to be pretty satisfied with EW and the end of the arc, and I can't wait for him to experience it. He's pretty well invested at this point, which I think is great because FFXIV would give him the space and time to play and cover other games better, but we'll see!
I mean... one of the best things about FF14 in my opinions is that after you've done the content, you don't need to be there every single day. Thanks to FF14 I finally found time to play so many solo game franchises. I finally played dark souls, I'm going through all the final fantasy games now, went back to finish dishonored, the witcher, Halo MCC, and so much more and I still log into FF at least 3 times a week. Mike doesn't need to be there all the time, he can just play it every major patch.
Watching a lot of WoW content creators do FFXIV's MSQ has been like watching them go through rehab for the soul. Just years of stress and anxiety melting off.
That was the key point of Eureka, it was experimental and Bozja polished it a bit more. They only need to add something in Bozja to keep players interested in going there. Maybe loot, maybe increase it to 60-80, maybe add duel achivements, etc. But we cant complain, no other MMO is trying to be this friendly with content, from what we see, they are improving the theory of this kind of content and we have no reason to doubt next one will improve even more.
Eureka still has a dedicated community around it and the community aspect of it is its biggest strength it still has over Bozja. Both are absolutely worth completing and appreciating for what they do best.
I completely conquered Bozja. Got all the notes, did all the duels, cleared each of the raids 50 times, and loved every second of it. I love Bozja. Almost didn't bother with it because I hated Eureka, but the devs are very good at making things better. The new Deep Dungeon is very exciting!
I fucking loved Eureka and the asthetic along with the old school hardcore grinding aspect of it out in the world. I enjoy it more than the base game lol.
What amazed me with Bozjah is the difficulty of critical engagement and raids you have to do. I remember dying so many times at the beginning while the rest of the players were avoiding every mecanics. It makes me think that the average player of FF is a way better player than the average WoW player because SE isn't actually afraid of giving us challenging and punishing content in a grind.
One of the things I found most rewarding about Bozja was going from being the person needing rez's to being the person winning a duel. I hadn't even done many extremes or any savage content at that point. Bozja teaching me mechanics--and players being so positive during it--was what pushed me into trying harder stuff.
I don't know if I could say its true about the *average* player (there are some pretty bad players out there) but there's a pretty good possibility that the midcore types might be better than their WoW counterparts.
i don't know i the average FF player is inherently better, just that the FF design philosophy involves constantly re-using mechanics players have already seen so the learning curve isn't so steep. There's very little that will truly surprise you in a non-ultimate boss fight so long as you've played through the entire game, so even if you're fighting a new boss you can pretty accurately guess at what's going on most of the time.
It's hard to quantify if the average XIV player is "better" than the average WoW player. For every two players on point, I always encounter another who just has no clue right after, especially as of late. There's even lots of players who manipulate their gear score to chronically run the easiest content in roulettes ad nauseum, which forces everybody to run them constantly instead of higher level content that asks a bit more of you.
In fairness, Final Fantasy doesn't rely on add-ons and provides mostly consistent telegraphs that players can learn instead, which in turn fosters more independent and - as a result - more capable players.
@@Luxy_st Baldesion Arsenal. It is the dungeon that can have up to 56 players at once that you do going through Eureka. I've never done it, as I didn't do Eureka until doing a bit of it recently.
@@semiramisubw4864 I mean if u play with ppl its easy but i did a lot of solo grinding and i enjoyed it a lot especially pagos which everybody hates its always fun learning how to traverse that area without dying.
I feel like a tonne of WoW's systematic problems feel like they stem from Blizzard not having faith in their content being fun. A lot of the systems/zones/grinds people have pushed back on recently could have, at the very least been seen as 'okay' side activities that some people would just go and do for fun. Blizzard need to learn to incentivise people to do content just for the fun of it again, for rewards that aren't linked to power whatsoever, and that are more lasting (Mage Tower etc). I feel like WoW is at it's best when the end game pillars are closer to being self-sufficient content wise (not being propped up by non-endgame systems) and the rest of the game is designed to just be fun... Not a series of obstacles to be put in the way of people wanting to be optimal.
It's not that it's no faith in the content. It's no faith in the community when you read what is being screamed over the past decade or two. Which essentially comes down to wanting things in the open world that gives power equal to Mythic but at the same time not "obligatory" for mythic to do it.
You ever think they just don’t wanna do their jobs anymore especially after constant backlash caused by their own arrogance and ignorance? Cause that’s what it looks like.
I would add that Blizz approach to development and design of WoW is extremely close to utility application development. As I work in this area to an extent it seriously reeks of "make it as efficient as possible, each functionality must be native, streamlined and utilized - otherwise it's a waste of money". WoW is an application in it's core and some mentality certainly can be carried over but this philosophy is seriously wrong when it comes to games. WoW started off as very opposite of it. You can say all games are just bunch of mechanics embedded into a visual medium but I compare it to music - you can write craziest shit on music sheets but at the end of day all that really matters is how it sounds when it's played.
@@faelirra I mean that is why FFXIV can be the way it is. Something Mike might not have noticed yet, is with his definition of casual, in FFXIV you can get to within 10 ilvls of the very top. Meanwhile in WoW it is like 30ilvls behind so there is a huge difference.
i think the problem is the people making final decisions on WoW content are either of the decidedly 'sweaty' mindset, or barely play at all and are just looking at 'engagement metrics'. There's basically nobody involved who really considers the casual player. FF goes out of it's way to make sure it's not just a game for the top 10%... WoW, well, their lead designer comes from a guild named 'elitist jerks'...
The first several expansions don't really seem driven by fun. It felt like I was a fulltime delivery boy for dozens of hours, teleporting across the world constantly just to talk to someone, to only turn around and do it again. Some story beats are good, but there's so much dated fluff just to get to the endgame.
@@Ditronus. There is a massive difference in mentality between FFXIV and WoW. WoW is meaningless until "the endgame"; levelling is just a long prelude the actual game starting. That's not the mentality of FFXIV, and it's a mentality that WoW migrants, like myself, need to get over if we're going to enjoy FFXIV for what it is -- which is not the same as WoW.
@@peregrine5327 nah I’ve played WoW but not heavy. FFXIV is a movie with a little bit of well designed fight scenes. But it’s like 70% cutscenes. Y’all FF players need to stop acting like it’s not. I have never played a game where I have to teleport and read or watch something 10x before I can actually start killing stuff.
The fact that we're in a brand new expansion and Bozja is *still* relevant and useful and content players regularly engage in shows how well designed it is.
I absolutely *hated* Bozja when I started because it felt so overwhelming, but then I started figuring out how the system works, and what do you know, it's fun as all hell.
Having gone through the full Bozja Relic grind (3 times), here's my points on it for people that may be interested. 1) The fact that you don't need to play as the job that corresponds to your weapon is fantastic. To get the items to drop, all you need is to have the relevant quests active. I spent time levelling Monk and Summoner while doing the first major item grind for my Red Mage and White Mage weapons. 2) Learning where the grinds can overlap is key to streamlining this stuff. This mainly kicks in near the end though. The last two steps when doing a run for any weapon past your first can be done simultaneously through Delubrum Reginae. The first time through doesn't have any overlap though, for obvious reasons. 3) The grinds are (mostly) future-proofed. Each repeatable grind has methods to obtain each item without the need to do anything in Bozja, or will have methods that yield more than one of the item you'd be after. For example, the first grind can be done through Fates in Bozja OR by doing Fates in regular Heavensward areas. The exception for me is the Timeworn Artefacts. While they can be gotten from Palace of the Dead, the drop rate for the item is really low, while a Delubrum run yields 3 of the item every single run. 4) There are steps (and item grinds) that only need to be done during the process of getting your first weapon. While these grinds can be annoying as hell (Looking at you, Zadnor Grind), the fact that once you've done them, you never need to do them again is a fucking motivator and a half. Even then, they're also future-proofed, just like the repeatable steps. Hell, one of the one-off grinds actually REQUIRES you to grind outside of Bozja. 5) The Zadnor Grind I mentioned a minute ago is the worst step of any grind, bar none. 6 items, 20 of each. 180 items in total. The useful thing is that to complete the story of Bozja, you need to hit Rank 25 so you can do the final raid for the storyline. USE THAT REQUIREMENT TO YOUR ADVANTAGE. The Zadnor Grind can give you items from doing Fates and Critical Engagements in each of it's three sections. I got past it by using the Fates and Critical Engagements to build my Rank up as I got the items. When I hit Rank 25, I immediately dove out of Bozja and started doing 8 man raids to get the rest. Thankfully, it only has to be done while sorting out the first Relic Weapon. It will take a while to do, took me 2 weeks. Once you get past it, you will feel the weight lift from your shoulders, and it is SO worth the satisfaction that it's over.
You can set yourself up a spread sheet and work on a weapon at each stage, simultaneously, so that nothing you do goes to waste. It's still a grind, but it makes doing additional weapons go really fast.
You forgot to mention that for relic grind, Bozja is just one of the sources of materials needed, it gives you alternative source for every step if I remember correctly, so if you didn't want to grind in bozja you could do dungeons, raids or FATEs (depending on which step it was on) :)
exactly the thing drawn me the most in the game is actually the game telling me do whatever you want no time to play for a week? doesnt matter the stuff doesnt run away do it when your back. im not missing out on anything i can just play whenever i feel like playing wich is the best thing to ever happen to me in an mmo.
It feels so good, I don't even care if I don't cap my 450 weekly tomestones. And the best part is I will play Elden Ring 100% focus for 1 or 2 weeks without any remorse or need to log into FFXIV, and that in an MMO is PRICELESS.
I dunno dude, i did up to Stormblood with everyone hyping me up and telling me ”ah the boring part is over soon”. A game that has a 100h boring intro is not respecting your time at all. Anyways, HW is massivly overrated, it was okay. But if I wanna watch a good story ill just watch a movie instead. If HW was a movie it would get a 4.9 on imdb, watchable when ure bored. I think wow being so bad has lowered peoples expectations of a good story, but FF story is bad and that is an objective take tbh About the mmo aspect of the game, really doesn’t feel like an mmo. Endgame is basically like WoD and still people are praising it. Raid, ERP or log out.
@@shoobror8291 always a shame seeing people like you cause you clearly just got whipped up in the hype and burnt out without even interacting with the game. Hope you find an mmo you enjoy bud, won't miss you tho lmao
Preach should take a look into DR Savage, as one of the two only contents with "perma" death in FF ... yeah you can rez but you are super limited by how much rezzes you can carry and how often they fail. Also the reward for clearing it is a 100% personal mount drop, just like in BA
What's nice is that both BA and DRS still have a small but very active portion of the community running them (at least on my data center, yours may vary). While I still wouldn't call them "easy" by any means, having some veteran players calling things out on voice comms relieves a lot of the pressure and, in my opinion, makes the content a lot more fun.
@@tyty8484 they don't go away until the boss dies, and it's 3 for the first bosses, and 2 for Queen and TA. ( doesn't really matter on TA since temperature is 999999 damage)
Oh my god, is that your new office? It looks fucking amazing, dude! Edit: One thing about duels that I feel is worth criticizing is their rarity. If you *really* enjoy difficult solo content, you have to wait for the right skirmish, then complete that skirmish with a gold rating and without taking hits, and then you have to hope you get the duel if more people sign up for it. If you don't get it, you have to do steps 1 and 2 again. That sucks. And if the person who gets the duel immediately fails, that chance is just wasted. Same if you get it and immediately fail. And people *do* try and make you feel bad about that. It's happened to me when I was completely new to Bozja and got into a duel, but had no idea what I was in for. I hope they make more difficult solo content, but I also hope they won't make it nearly as restrictive as the duels. I understand the appeal of the duels, and them being open world, but the fact that I will likely be taking someone else's spot, along with people watching me during the fight, that stresses me out like crazy. So I hope that if we ever see something like them again, they will be more accessible. Not easier, just more accessible.
That's fair. I never queued for the duels when they spawned despite qualifying for them most of the time because 1. I was just trying to farm mettle and 2. I knew I was going to lose and didn't want the weight of people being disappointed on my shoulders. At the same time, I've never personally seen people be deliberately toxic to people who fail the duels. There's some sad, some upset, but I've not really noticed much of any real aggro from other players directed towards people who fail the duel. Could just be my server or the times I was online.
note, the notoriety system was added to the zone as a pity system, as you don't get chosen for the duel you accumulate notoriety which eventually will make you be chosen
@@MythrilZenith I didn't have active aggression, but definitely passive aggression. It still made me feel bad, despite not really even understanding what I did wrong. Just someone explaining very thoroughly and way past the point that I understood what I had done, that I had taken someone else's shot at that duel. You'll never see active aggression in FFXIV anyway, because people are too scared of being reported and penalized. But that doesn't mean they don't find different ways of making sure you know that they think you fucked up.
@@neobahumuth6 The notoriety system is an improvement, but you can still miss out on a duel multiple times. Having to wait for one shot at a duel for over an hour is pretty damn crazy.
Often times I find that the people who complain the most about areas like Eureka and Bozja are people whose first and only MMO was XIV. The fact they are free to complain about these areas as much as they want without needing to step one toe in them is enough proof that these players don't know how good they have it.
On the flip - I find a lot of OG MMO players that crave grinds hated Bozja and, overall FF14 lately. I have a few in my circle and they constantly complain they are bored because the game doesn't force them to be on daily to get things done.
@@AsatsuyaH At that point, they might as well just not play. I'm not sure where the obsession of a game being like a job came from, but if you have to find a reason to play a game, you probably don't actually want to play it. There's literally so many other games to play. It's not like they're going to miss much if they unsub and wait a couple months for more new content to release.
@@AsatsuyaH Yoshi-P is pretty open about he doesn't want to design XIV to dominate people's lives. He even openly says in live letters, "Finish all the content you want to do? Feel free to unsub, we'll be here when the next patch drops if you want to come check it out."
@@AsatsuyaH but that’s the great thing about the game you can do other stuff. I have been playing lost ark since launch and don’t feel like I’m being left behind in FF
I'll say this: Bozja and Eureka are basically two different takes on the same concept, and while I would say that Bozja evolves from Eureka, I find that they also suit two different types of player. Eureka is a very slow, grind heavy experience. It's been extremely nerfed these days from when it first came out, but it's still very much a grind. It's also a completely internal, closed-system grind - aside from relic weapons and dying your job armor, none of the stuff you do in Eureka affects the rest of the game. Because of this, Eureka doesn't have much utility. However, the slower pace of Eureka combined with its internal rewards means that Eureka is much more inherently social: you have to form parties to join the notorious monster train, players will often chat with each other between spawns, and there's a more general sense of community. Basically, Eureka openly fosters a multiplayer experience, which makes it great to do with communities or friends. This is accentuated by the relatively small community who does Eureka. You feel like a tight knit band of buddies. Bozja is the rapid pace, solo-player take on the concept. The rewards are not system internal, meaning you can enjoy Bozja's rewards outside of Bozja (namely, leveling your alt jobs). The Critical Engagements also spawn a lot faster than in Eureka, meaning that you always have something to do and the grind is very rapid. However, this also means that the sense of community is somewhat lost. While you can easily clear Bozja by yourself, most people don't talk in chat except to ask for information on raids, and most parties disband the second that you don't need them anymore. You feel more like a cog in a machine or a fish in a whole school swimming towards the same destination -- part of the crowd but not connected. However, there's always a huge sense of enjoyment with seeing your grinding rewarded. So, I've generally found that people who are more concerned with rewards and doing content solo enjoy Bozja much more, while people who enjoy social aspects and grinding for grind's sake enjoy Eureka more. Neither player is wrong, they just enjoy different things. It's also why I think that Eureka shouldn't have a leveling system built into it (Heaven-on-High exists already), as it would negate the social aspects of Eureka, which the community wouldn't appreciate.
this is exactly right even if you arnt hunting nm even the bunny farmers socialize a bit it's a cool place to hang out when you dont have other content to do and i remember after i finished my bozja relic i went straight back to eureka and was like "i'm home" I like bozja for what it offers in progression but i like eureka for what it offers me that bozja cant which is a sense of community.
I really enjoyed Eureka before EW release (because I'm used to grind from previously playing Runescape) but at least on Chaos there was often Hydatos drama caused by people instapulling FATEs so that aspect kinda got annoying. I personally prefer that those issues are mostly avoided in Bozja because of systems in place.
@@Ankfank you could argue that that is part of the fun, we dont have that happen as often on aether but it does occasionally same with hunts. my philosophy for "early pulls on nms" is if u cared that much about it you woulda helped spawn it so u'd already be there. i personally dont early pull but if im farming NM im helping spawn them.
Hello Mike, the best thing you can be doing is *exactly* what you're doing right now. Rather than trying to work within the WoW community, by being outside it; and showing exactly what you *have been trying to tell Blizzard for the last 4-5+ years* [player choice & playstyle > how Blizzard wants players to choose & how a 'class should be played], by highlighting how other game designers have built a game, *and* by highlighting exactly WHY it is so excellent, you can move WoW back to where it should be. Keep this up. Player choice > Whatever a Game Designer thinks is *important- because it's important to me.*
Unrelated to the video but I hope Preach continues his plan to playthrough older entries of Final Fantasy. I'd love to see what he thinks of FF Tactics, just played through it for the first time myself and it was awesome. Especially after doing the storm blood alliance raids! Now I get all the juicy references.
Man, i really, really l, really want to see mike interviewing Yoshi-p and the FF devs. I hope you guys can get it on the next press event for the game.
Given the effort they put in to reach even new arrivals like Rich and Asmon, I don't doubt that Preach will get his turn when the next Media Tour rolls around, assuming he's still playing by then.
I have 100% confidence yoshiP will have a chat with Mike because they have talked to new ff14 players like Asmon and even talked to smaller ones in the last year media tour. Even if Mike plays the other game yoshiP would not really mind it since he also encourages everyone to play other game not only FF14
Wasn't Mike the top FFXIV twitch streamer after Endwalker released? I'm confident Yoshi-P will have an interview with him the next time they do the press event.
16:02 Relic is ALWAYS behind raid bis until the very last patch. Relic is always catchup and content for it/upgrades will come out after/between savage patches.
@@Ravnesss I mean there's nothing stopping you from going back into Savage and Ultimates with your new relic. Having the relic separate from raid content means no one is forced to have to grind one out if they want to raid. And at the same time, people who are not interested in raiding can still get a super powerful weapon. It's a win-win for both parties.
One thing mike forgot to mention that he liked about the content is that compared to the msq you are actually able to have extented periods of time to practice the class you are on, single dps and aoe rotations etc.
I'm kind of sad Mike didn't know about the fact that you can grind relic materials in heavensward zone fates. The dev made high level players go back to low level zones. The dev populate the low level zones so that sprouts wouldn't feel lonely while doing fates, at least they tried anyways.
12:25 I heard this story, and all I could think was, "If this was something in WoW, all you would hear from the crowd would be people shitting on you if you failed, because now YOU kept them from getting THEIR buff." It makes me so sad that I think of WoW's community so poorly, but I just cannot trust a random WoW player to be decent anymore. I want to, but I can't. :(
It's kind of already the case in bozja, but mostly for hardcore people. Getting duels is pretty time consuming and RNG, and if someone else takes it and loses because they didn't bring the basic preparations, it can feel like you were robbed if you're prepared and researched but just lost the roll. Notoriety does improve this significantly though, but it's still a grind for it.
@@sauceinmyface9302 really not as much of a grind as you're making out. Specific 4th legion enemies in each zone spawns the skirmish that when completed spawns the CE that when done without getting hit will spawn a duel. If you don't get your duel you get a notoriety which eventually guarantees you get in. There is no rng besides if multiple people complete the CE flawlessly in which case they all have earned the right to take part. But again, due to notoriety you can guarantee your selection if you have consistently been unlucky
Thanks for the great Video Preach/Chris and everytime solid, really fair opinion with critique and praise! Very happy you enjoy FFXIV! Enjoy your stay in Mexico, you and your whole family.
Eureka is kind of polarizing, you either love it or you hate it. I fall into the former camp, and I like to go spend an hour or two in Eureka when it's busy (need more relic weapons/armor/mounts). There's really nothing for you there if you're looking for progression (other than progression on the weapons/armor, and its own progression), but a ton for you if you're capped and looking for something else to do (say, if you've finished Bozja). I have to say, when Eureka is busy, it is one of the best parts of the game. I myself like to play healer and go around rezzing people (since it's a big loss if you die and don't get rezzed). Baldesion Arsenal is quite a raid, with a very desirable mount at the end of it. Lots of people disagree with all this, and just call it a boring grind. They're not wrong. But if you're into Eureka, you know what I mean.
@@jesperjohansson9857 I got into Eureka at the end of Shadowbringers (in other words, when we had lots of free time) and it wasn't uncommon to have over a hundred people in Pagos farming NMs. That might have skewed my perception of Eureka a bit.
What's amazing is that when you finally get outside of wow and try out other games, you realize just how poorly wow doesn't the same MMORPG game mechanics that everyone else does. It can be a culture shock to realize games like FFXIV are more interested in your quality of game experience and believe that if they make it fun, you will play it more. It isn't just FFXIV either, though they are particularly good at it. ESO, GW2, etc just have better approaches to the same task. Even just the simple concept of how you gather loot off a mob is better in almost mmorpg I play and I play a lot of them lol. The main reason FFXIV is better than wow at something like this is they look at how WoW did it and they try to do it better, that and they focus on the fun factor for the gamer. I am holding out hope for the day that WoW does the same as people still love the Warcraft universe, they just hate the implementation.
That used to be what WoW was known for, back in the early days. They weren't innovators, they took all the concepts other MMOs had done and polished them and made a great overall experience. At some point that was lost. Now they can't seem to hold one lesson in their head from a single expansion to the next. Look at Nazjatar and Mechagon from BfA. Mechagon had a bunch of optional stuff, secret stuff, jetpacks, and had very little relevance to the endgame. Nazjatar was a grindy daily zone where min-maxers had to go over and over again, day in day out. Mechagon was much better received. Next expansion we get Korthia, and which of those two zones does it end up resembling?
What amazes me the most is the hype and loss of own opinion in regards to World of Warcraft.... WoW is not a bad game, the pace, gameplay, instances, feeling and raids are and will be unbeaten for a long time. FF XIV Combat always feels clunky and not a direct, ESO has a horrible rotation with bar-switching and combat feels kinda dull, GW2 has nice gameplay but it looks and feels old, and the PvE-Part just is not good.
The beautiful part of all this is: You don't have to feel bad about skipping Eureka one bit. If you want to give it a go some day, then it will always be waiting for you.
eureka can 100% be skipped. it has an independent leveling system separate from the character level. its only for poetics, relic weapons, minions mounts and the raid at the very end, its a glamor zone and has no relation to a 'catch up' zone.
I really love Bozja... Now you do need to be at least level 71 to enter Bozja. It levels you up to 80 and item synchs everyone to 430 - so you start with a level playing field. It's great because it lets you preview your skills while working toward unlocking them fully. I think you've gone over a lot of the major systems in play so cheers :) There's a lot of ways to level in XIV, so the "grind" doesn't feel so bad Roulettes - Particularly MSQ and Frontlines (min level 30 for Frontlines) Palace of the Dead/Heaven on High - Levels 1-60 and 61-70 respectively Eureka/Bozja - Level 61-70 and 71-80 respectively. Eureka is the Proto-Bozja and requires a heavier grind toll. Eureka has 4 different zones, and you can tell they were listening to player feedback as you see the changes each zone brings to the table and how Bozja took that critique and ran with it. You can even see how the Southern Front and Zadnor differ as well. Southern Front used to be more grind heavy until they upped the mettle received from it. You can also see how they handle Relics differently too. Eureka is the ONLY place you can gain materials for and develop your level 70 relic weapon. Bozja is still required to unlock the full potential of your level 80 relic, but if you don't like grinding in Bozja, they allow you to get the materials via. fates and dungeons in earlier parts of the game - which also encourages veteran players to revisit older content. *Chefs kiss*
I think its actually that the design brief frames those design decisions differently: 1. How do we make this so that the players will WANT to play it? 2. How are we going to make the zone rewarding to come back to consistently? In other words, they're actually making a game. Not some gamer subscription conversion machine.
15:58 As a note on this note, relics aren't really the same ilvl as savage weapons. Bozja relics released at i485 in patch 5.25 when the current e8s raid weapon was i505, and relics don't overtake raid weapons and become BiS until the X.5 patches (i535 raid weap was 5.4, i535 bozja weap was 5.55). So it's not really a question of just being "not considered required", since it'd be worse than raid weaps until after anyone who probably cares much about BiS has already cleared the raids. They're mainly just glamour weaps + weaps that help you kill stuff faster in the following expansion.
I agree, but the relic becomes the BiS, and they are monster weapons for ultimate content. So your time is still rewarded even is glamour doesnt matter. I love that.
Good Vid. I don't particularly like Bozja (I preferred Eureka but not by much) but I never felt *bad* doing them because I never ever felt like my time was being wasted.
I think you could argue that FFXIV has multiple end games. Traditionally we only think of end games as raiding, but since everything outside of the story is optional that leaves players the freedom to deep dive into whichever aspect of the game they'd like. You want to catch all of the fish? That's probably an even bigger challenge than Savage raiding, honestly. Getting the Necromancer title, collecting all of the mounts and minions, making it rich on the market, etc. Other games have those gameplay categories too but I feel like you're significantly more free to pursue them here
FF14 consistently has so much stuff you can do but don't feel obligated to do and I love that because it removes the stress. I have a love/hate relationship with Bozja myself but because of the ease of entry and the fact you can buy a bunch of stuff you need if you don't want to farm, I have full resistance weapons on almost all my jobs just by having the quests open and doing my dailies outside Bozja. I do think the last Bozja instance needs better rewards since no one does it anymore but overall, I love things like Bozja that you can just hop into for XP and a change of pace.
Actually really funny how the developers were successful with this not mandatory zone. After the launch the first zone they said that to their surprise 50% of the active playerbase engaged with the content regurarly which was surprising to them, they were expecting less. I really enjoyed both Bozja and Zadnor, the raids and CEs were fun, and it is still good for leveling alts. Thanks for the good review!
The difference that having a Game Director that is on the company board (Yoshi) vs a Game Director that takes order from money people that only care about the Mau's and total player spends etc...
it's also worth mentioning the reward for Bozja, as Preach mentioned these days it's a glamour piece, however back when the content dropped it was a weapon that has a special model with cool upgradable particle effects that can be used for glamour/transmog, but also that weapon is 1 halfstep below what would be the equivalent of a mythic raid drop. So like you CAN farm it out if you want what's probably second BiS (maybe first, depending on how secondary stats work out). If you're struggling with the current tier, or just don't plan on pushing through it it's 100% an option for basically as good. If you are a high end raider it's entirely optional and basically just cosmetic.
When Mike does Eureka he is going to see all of the improvements they changed for Bozja. But ya Bozja is fun I completed 5 relic weapons and leveled a bunch of alts through it. I probably won’t do anymore aside from maybe duels or DR savage because I have everything else from there.
Sounds like scarcity philosophy (WoW) vs abundance philosophy (FF14). Scarcity-based designs revolve around limiting and funneling players actions. While abundance-based encourages the player to explore stuff as they grow curious. It's not just about the amount of content available. Content being optional is crucial. People like different things, no one should be forced to do any content. The content should be fun on their own merit. WoW had some content patches where they released a ton of content at once, more content than a normal player could do. But then when players started endlessly grinding the content for the gear rewards, Blizzard put a limit to it. It has been all over WoW since they started doing it. Weekly honor cap, weekly mythics, table resources, residues as so on. All because no matter how much content they put out, WoW is still a game based on scarcity and time-gated power rewards. Hardcore players will always push the limits to get their power upgrades faster than anyone else, as that gives them an edge. To fix WoW the devs need to completely change their design philosophy.
Been watching you for years Preach. I left WoW in 2019 after 15 years of playing. I've been *very* casually playing FF since then, still doing Shadowbringer's MSQ. I'm floored at how different the feel of the game is; its everything you've said. The design was focused on 'fun' before anything else. They are just trusting that people will keep playing, and guess what, they do! Simply making a fun game and *trusting* your players, (and trusting your product) is the correct way to earn loyalty! Leading by pleasure instead of guilt and fear, who would have thought?! It makes me realize how insecure some of the system designers must be over at Blizz (at least now). They are so afraid to lose attention, they keep gripping tighter, and more of us keep slipping through their fingers.
What's really cool is this is only ONE of the optional types of endgame paths that open to you and help you get caught up or just earn rewards. I have the title for getting all the prestige buffs, the special motorcycle from all the field notes, and all available cosmetics from Zadnor and Bozja but it never felt like a chore because I was having fun and wanted to be there. Some of the notes are more annoying rare drops but I was fine being there even if I wanted to pull my hair out sometimes since it was my choice to get some cool stuff! I think for a lot of people that hate the Bozja type content its because they're trained from other games to believe their forced so it doesn't really click you don't have to be there. The first relic is also the longest and after you do one the rest are faster since it skips the longest steps.
Wow: design a reward that you get at the end and put roadblock on the way FF: design multiple rewards on the way and offers roadblocks if you want to grind more for achivements etc
An example of how many activities in FFXIV. I have cleared Savages & Ultimates but never gone to Bozja. There are just so many things offered to player to do in FFXIV. Glad to see Preach highlighting these aside from “endgame” content so many content creators focus on.
Took me 2 weeks to get ready for Savage tier and it wasn't even grinding it was just first Playthrough for the story, then reclear fast next week and I was done. Then 4 weeks it took my static to finish Savage and now I'm basically done and I don't even log anymore unless I wanna level alts and for reclear day for the savage mount. I got time to play other things, it's a nice break and I still enjoy the casual content here and there to unlock the role quests and see the story for that.
Just a small thing: Eureka is NOT a catch up zone. You can only do it at 70, not 61-70 like Bozja is 71-80, it gives no exp, and was primarily just there for the relic weapon, and some semi-decent glamour sets
I think the biggest takeaway here is how the devs take feedback into creating the next version of something. This is the third "catch up" zone we have had in XIV starting with Diadem into Eureka and then Bozja. While the original version of diadem is no longer available, there are videos of it out there. Each time the zone failed to lived up to player expectations and the next time it was improved. Rather than in WoW we have had this style of "catchup zone" since Mists of Pandaria where one could argue was the best version of the zone, and the developers have tried to maximize time spent rather than the fun and usefulness of the zone into what we have seen in the most recent wow zone.
Tldw; Everything is easy, you are spoonfed items, you breathe you get something. Plus, FF14 is not WoW. Side note: This shift in the MMO space made me realize why FF14 shines right now more than ever. It is the opposite of WoW. Literally... I really dont see the appeal of paying a sub for a story where you can just watch the whole damn thing on RUclips. It's the journey not the destination doesnt work due to your character just nodding and you go map to map for hours so that NPCs can talk about something happening and your character only nods and cheers. What a fun experience. I can see people enjoying their time on Eorzea this game has a lot more than just the story but I'm so sick of people shoving the story up my ass every time this game comes up. Btw, Wow had Brawler's guild. NO ONE GAVE A SHIT.
FF14 has their own equivalent of brawler guild which is Blue Mage Carnivale, god its actual very fun solo content where you can use boss ability to make it broken as possible I know a lot of blue mage community are waiting for next update patch right now
I've always been a fan of yours, Preach. I loved your WoW videos for years and I honestly quit WoW before BFA came out. I quit at the end of legion because I wasn't happy with what I saw. I decided to look your content up again and found this video....it's convinced me to play FF14. Everything I watched from this made me think it would be a blast to try. I'll probably buy it and try it this weekend. I hope all is well with you man!
The interesting thing about Bozja buffs from a design standpoint si 1) since they are bound to Bozja/Zadnor, the devs don't have to worry about breaking the game, and can have fun and also 2) because they have buffed you so much, the devs don't really have to be fair. Bozja mobs basically don't leash, so you can get trains. Bozja CR bosses are not nice with tier mechanics because you are supposed to be buffed. In general the encounters keep you on your toes for what otherwise could be mindless grinding. And, as Mike says, if you don't want to, you can go get gear other ways anyway. All you are really losing by not doing Bozja is easy job levelling, a cool story and relics for ShB, which are not the BiS items anyway and are just cool looking. And even nicer, once you get a relic of each tier, if all you care about is the cosmetics you can just buy the skins for all the other relics at that tier. I didn't do Eureka, though I might go back, because I wanted to get ready for EW, but I was overall impressed with Bozja.
awesome video! you be surpirsed how many new players who joined us during the HYPE of Shadowbringer, most never heard of Eureka, Bozjan and even Binding Coils Of Bahamut. Hope this brings those players to those contents :)
It's more than not forcing players to be there. FFXIV actually gives casual players a path to BiS or near-BiS gear. The raiders get there first through Savage but everyone can eventually get there through Tomestone gear upgrades and the Relic weapon. FFXIV doesn't leave 99% of the player base feeling left out in regards to player power.
I will point out that it's easy for sprouts to get blocked at Delubrum Reginae right now. Obviously Mike avoided this because he had a group to run with him but your average player is going to sit in queue for 10 minutes and then zone in to a group that is likely fewer than 8 players (possibly even solo) and they will probably be unable to complete the run. PF can be really hit or miss with getting people to join as well. The only sure way to get through it right now is to go find the discord that organizes runs for your DC which is a less than ideal solution.
Mike this was a FANTASTIC video. I'm halfway thru Bozja and didn't even really know about half the shit that you mentioned. We are so stoked to have you making content for FF nowadays.
Bozja is pretty much the only viable leveling route for alt classes after MSQ, or if you have a static leveling group dungeons would likely be faster. It's fun, but gets tiring after 10+ levels of grinding the fates. But it's still better than what was around prior to Eureka/Bozja. Plus unlocking Bozja is a pain for new players if the season/expansion cycle is in the middle of the content (e.g. less players online) because of the required raids to finish the questline.
When they introduced the Mission Board in WoD and saw people clicking and logging in all the time like rats in a crack experiment to make sure they were maximizing rewards, the folks at Blizzard saw dollar signs. Since then, they've tried to include something like that at every step, not taking into account that eventually, the dopamine hits start to weaken over time until eventually people are just exhausted and angry. And then, it all just comes crashing down.
I personally enjoyed Bozja a lot even though i havent won any duels and got the field notes mount yet, i made like 5 relics already too! Currently doing Eureka slowly
What I like about 14 is essentially, if you don't wanna do certain content, you don't have to. The only mandatory content is MSQ, which I find enjoyable. The only small thing I wish they did was make Coils MSQ, the same way they did for Crystal Tower. Not for me since I've long finished it, but I feel like new players are just missing out on something special because Coils is the absolute hardest content in ARR and new players might struggle to find groups to run it with, or a 90 friend to carry them through it.
I did Bozja towards the end of Shadowbringers. I remember I was running into some ilvl walls while doing the patch MSQ content and loving the fact that right away I had options for dealing with that gear problem. I could grind dungeons or work on the raids or even just buy crafted gear on the market board. I ended up succumbing to the siren's call of a glowing resistance weapon and a cool looking jacket from Bozja. On my quest for that weapon I ended up being given even more options on how I wanted to earn it. I could grind things out in Bozja, or I could revisit old fates, dungeons, and raids. It turned into one rabbit hole after another of fun stories that I missed while hyper focusing on the MSQ. And because they were all one of multiple options on how I could work on whatever particular part of the quest I was on it felt freeing. I was in control of my fun. I could switch at any time to another option and still be progressing towards the same goal. In my eyes Bozja is one of the greatest examples of not only giving the players options, but also of keeping older content relevant. And after recently doing Eureka I can see how FFXIV's dev team learns from and builds on what they learn about things that work and don't work. I'm excited to see what they do for Endwalker and how it continues to refine things.
I actually didn't unlock Bozja until after I cleared EW. I just never got around to doing the Ivalice raids, and really should have. Glad I still have Eureka and Bozja to explore
You mentioned Systems Mike, and there are actually a few I'd be curious to hear your take on. Not necessarily something you'd need to stream, but as someone so involved in the WoW systems, I'd be curious for your thoughts on the Adventure Squadrons (One of the things implemented I suspect in ARR or Heavenward, so obviously systems wise it's a bit dated) as compared to something like say trust or Retainers (some of the side systems not necessarily required for the MSQ). I'd also love your thoughts on how hard it is to "level an alt" and with you doing Dark Knight right now I imagine that won't be too tough a thing to really have a chance to look at.
TBH you dodged a bullet with Eureka, while it eventually gets good, it takes a while to do so, unlike Bozja which can be done in a couple days with a group, especially after the buffs. Eureka would've taken you ages to complete and would've halted your msq prog for a while and replaced it with hours of NM camping.
I spent like a month in Eureka before the release of Endwalker and actually loved it. I loved that people grouped up more. I guess I think both areas have something to offer.
Maybe it was when I did Eureka (about 1.5 years ago) but it only took maybe 40 hours to get my weapon and upgrade the elemental gear. I did make sure I went in there during the peak hours to ensure there were at least a few dozen players in the zone to ensure constant fate churning though. It really didn't feel like a grind but, admittingly, I did not when it was released, so I do not know what it was like at the start.
Bozja was semi-time gated in the sense that it was released over multiple patches. The difference is that once that patch releases everything was available if you wanted to grind it out as fast as possible, instead of being drip fed to you over multiple weeks in 1-2 hour chunks. The great thing about these zones is they get borrowed power gains right without breaking the rest of the game. You never lose what you gained within these alternative leveling systems (one might lose mettle, but not their ranks). You can leave the zones and come back months later and pick up right where you stopped on the alternative progression system.
I played shadowlands way less after I geared out my main, due to the long drawn out process of playing alts in shadowlands, the now mplus score that’s not account wide for the valor upgrading, just makes me not want to play my alts that much. It’s really exhausting knowing you have to grind a 2k mplus score on every alt to upgrade your gear.
Tbh Bozja, at the time of it's realese, was covered in controversy: from how it's story ended in a lore note, to SQE lying (or a mistranslation, we can't say for certain but I do remeber this) about you being able to progress one of you relics through the MSQ of bozja, to saying the relic wouldn't require bozja at all and then requiring Restiance rank 10 to even progress the second part of it....yeah, the ball got dropped. Also killing off any and all hope of the story of bozja being continued into something like a Dalmascan front (witch is what the end of the Bozja story pointed at) REALLY sucked. And it was done in a lore note and then pointed out by a dev on twitter... But like compared to a wow endgame zone it's actually really impressive (besdies the fact that it's an instance....)
A lot of FFXIV systems feel like they looked at WoW systems and listened to player feedback to try and improve them before implementing them. Things like how raids are structured to so you can queue for single encounters, how you progress your gear and so on. For some it feels somewhat safe and boring at times, but ultimately you can see why those things are the way they are.
Granted it's been ages since I've been to Eureka so I don't know if it has changed (but since the weekly challenges are still there I'd assume it's still the same) but back during Stormblood you couldn't level your classes in Eureka, it has its own leveling system which annoyed a lot of people as they now had to grind up Elevels (and there were no weekly challenges to help speed it up initially) and once that was done it was basically a forgotten level system, they learned from that and made Bozja have us at a static level but allowed us to gain experience for our classes which was pretty well received...
I worked a full time job and still managed to finish all but two of the Bozja weapons for those jobs before Endwalker dropped. Delibrum speed runs are some of the most insanely fun, over powered, high flying DPS things I've participated in . I'm now starting to pick away at the final two weapons, simply because I like being a completionist. And some day, I have to go back to Eureka.... ugh.
The best thing about bozja and eureka is since it's old content its possible to make a ton of gil there even after you have everything. It's such a flexible way of introducing content that will almost always have a fan base who plays it.
Played WOW for maybe a year, and I enjoyed lvling and doing quests and story, but once i got to max lvl, i HATED the grind of daily quests, When i was lvling and questing i felt so free, just exploring the world, and then BOOM, you have to grind same spots over and over. I am now plying FFXIV, and i am enjoying it. Its really hard to get used at first, it took me like 3 tries to really start plying, but now, its a BLAST.
Great video, however, I must note that Eureka is *not* a catch up zone. You don't gain normal xp there, the weapons and armor are decent at best and mainly only have a use in eureka, and you need to be level 70 at least to gain access to Eureka.
There's more to the Lost Actions than simply buffs, they can change your role entirely. There were many times where there wasn't a tank, and I just used my defense fragments to do it myself, all as a Red Mage, Monk, and Ninja. I've been a healer and a DPS as a Dark Knight and Warrior, Tanked as a White Mage, healed as a Bard. Your roles don't matter in Bozja, and it was an awesome experience in there. A place where the usual rules of the game are broken and you can just go nuts.
The best thing about Bozja, for me, was the wacky hijinks you could get up to using all the zone skills. Want to tank as a black mage? No problem. Machinist is the healer now? That works. White mage throws blood lily and instantly rips enmity off every tank in the entire zone? Totally normal! My friends and I helped run our data center's Bozja discord, and our big thing was to do irregular Lyon parties. All tank party, all healer party, all monk party (metallic yellow glamor is not optional), no job stone party (before the big nerf). It was a lot of fun figuring out just how goofy we could be and still succeed.
To be fair to "laying on the floor", I learn WAY better in raid environments if I'm able to get in there and lay on the floor a couple times. That's just me though.
This feels like a bad colour; pitting one game community against another instead of letting people just enjoy what they enjoy. It’s not a competition for the players; it’s a competition for the devs. Let the players enjoy or not enjoy whatever they want.
My fun (and annoying) grind was going for the field notes. For those new to the area and content, there's a compendium of npcs related to the bozja content, and you can collect many of their entries by doing specific skirmishes, critical engagements, and duels. Some are gimmes from doing the story, and some are drops from the raids' bosses. The reward is a flying bike of sorts, one FF12 fan will immediately recognize as the one used by Fran in that game. It's also a two seater mount, and one of the few not on the cash shop.
When you get to Savage, those Vuln Stacks are replaced with Damage Downs. Vuln stacks in savage felt like it overwhelmingly only punished healers for something they didn't do. Damage Downs are much more equitable.
Bozja when just playing through the story is pretty fun, but the moment you stop to grind is when it starts hitting the low notes... If you want some of the best rewards, it just turns into a system of sitting around the main camp waiting for Critical Engagements, and doing the raids on repeat.
Great video showing what bozja is great at! As an aside, eureka wouldn't really be classified as a catch-up zone, as it doesn't contribute any exp for your jobs outside of the zone specific leveling system. It does offer Tomestones like bosja, as well as some other aesthetic rewards still.
i like ff but its just doesn't hit me like wow. on wow i feel like there is always something to regardless of level. but on ff it feels like there is just phone books full of msq spam quests. dungeons are fun. but literally everything is locked behind walls of text and teleports.
Ah yes Bozja where the Rez Mage is king. I spent way too much time there during the gap between 5.55 and Endwalker, got all relics, armor, mounts and such. Probably would not have spent as much time in there if Endwalker had come out in July/August like it would have had in a normal year but still had a lot of fun. Just remember to thank you Red Mages folks and pray for their Mana.
Evening everyone. Mike is now in Mexico enjoying a well earned break with the Fam which means it's all Chris all the time on youtube for the next ten days. First up we're taking a look at FF14's endgame. As many of you know Mike has had a lot to say about WoW's systems - so when Mike stepped into Bozja at the stream audience's request; well suffice to say he was surprised to see the zone had pretty much everything he has wanted from WoW's endgame in spades, and none of it is MANDATORY.
I put my faith in the Chunkiest of Ninjas.
Whats next on the menu? ShB review video Stormblood?
When is the stream scheduled to begin again?
@@krae6695 He is away for 10 days starting this Wednesday, so he should return next Friday. Unless he does something on the weekend, stream should resume on the 28th.
Nice, I'm watching this while on vacation in Mexico.
The fastest way to make someone not want to do something is to tell them they have to. The moment it stops being a choice, even if it's fun, it gains an element of being a burden.
this is huge for me...any time i'm going to do something, especially if it's not fun, it HAS to be my choice. the moment someone tells me to do it, i no longer want to
Eg lost ark
This kind of describes my relationship with battle passes. I've always wondered why I have this weird relationship with them where I'll buy it in a spurt of commitment to the game and then within a few days I stop playing it because when I fire up my console the thought isn't "what should I play" it's "I guess I have to play Apex Legends". I immediately resent that feeling.
I only really feel this way usually when the mandatory part is time related. Like if its fun idc if its mandatory...as long as i can do it whenever i want at whatever pace i want without somehow being negatively impacted about that.
I love his scale of difficulty is from 'Easy' to 'Red Choctober'
We've all been there. Red choctober still gives people nightmares 😂
I remember seeing the memes on the day Bozja was released
"Who would win, 48 Warriors of Light or 1 red boi"
I can live through Red Chocabo, but I hate the Rise of the Robots. Between a very fast spinning boss with a wide aoe, that if you get hit will likely kill you. Then you get the math problems, then you are at 5 health, but your healer is dead. Which is a particular pain since healers are painful to level in there. Even with Aetherwave you aren't as healer doing enough damage to get full xp from fates, so you group up. But groups fall apart quick because dps and tanks don't 'need' a healer most of the time. As a main healer, I am surprised there is as many healers in there as there is.
Another note about Bozja, changes were made going from Southern Front to Zadnor based on community feedback, such as the inclusion on notoriety. Smaller changes were also periodically made like the timer to queue up for CLL and Dal being increased to 6 min so people had more of a heads up so they could plan skirmishes and Critical engagements more and not get stuck in the middle of a fight and miss the queue. It was really nice to see player feedback incorporated into the game throughout Bozja's life cycle.
also they made so that CE and skirmishes being completed in the map would make CLL and Dal spawn faster
Don’t forget the relic item drop updates because it was so bad and took so long
@@kuronaialtani Part of that is a real fix to a problem but other parts are also planned. As time passes, grinds are deliberately made easier to allow people to catch up.
I'm so happy for Mike. It doesn't matter if FFXIV doesn't end up being his main MMO after he's caught up with EW. The amount of fun he had and still has is a joy to watch. I would like to believe that this game had a very positive impact on his life and health.
I feel like he's going to be pretty satisfied with EW and the end of the arc, and I can't wait for him to experience it. He's pretty well invested at this point, which I think is great because FFXIV would give him the space and time to play and cover other games better, but we'll see!
I think mike is going to enjoy savage and enjoy being able to do so much casual content with his community too.
He can leave FFXIV then come back next patch or next raid series. Or stay for new PVP 😎😎😎
I mean... one of the best things about FF14 in my opinions is that after you've done the content, you don't need to be there every single day. Thanks to FF14 I finally found time to play so many solo game franchises. I finally played dark souls, I'm going through all the final fantasy games now, went back to finish dishonored, the witcher, Halo MCC, and so much more and I still log into FF at least 3 times a week. Mike doesn't need to be there all the time, he can just play it every major patch.
Watching a lot of WoW content creators do FFXIV's MSQ has been like watching them go through rehab for the soul. Just years of stress and anxiety melting off.
Bozja is like all the good parts of Eureka put together. It really encapsulates how much the developers learned over the years
That was the key point of Eureka, it was experimental and Bozja polished it a bit more. They only need to add something in Bozja to keep players interested in going there. Maybe loot, maybe increase it to 60-80, maybe add duel achivements, etc. But we cant complain, no other MMO is trying to be this friendly with content, from what we see, they are improving the theory of this kind of content and we have no reason to doubt next one will improve even more.
@@ralstlin939 You know there are already achievements for every duel alone.. and also for winning all duels total?
@@Syrzan86 nope, I dont do duels, good they already have these for collectors. I just hope they add more stuff
Eureka still has a dedicated community around it and the community aspect of it is its biggest strength it still has over Bozja. Both are absolutely worth completing and appreciating for what they do best.
@@rface0 agree the vibe in eureka was much better than bozja :( makes me sad because i think bozja is better content
I completely conquered Bozja. Got all the notes, did all the duels, cleared each of the raids 50 times, and loved every second of it. I love Bozja. Almost didn't bother with it because I hated Eureka, but the devs are very good at making things better. The new Deep Dungeon is very exciting!
I fucking loved Eureka and the asthetic along with the old school hardcore grinding aspect of it out in the world. I enjoy it more than the base game lol.
@@maxrusty3596 awesome! I'm really glad that there are so many different types of content in 14, something for everyone!
@@lens_hunter For sure some ppl just log onto FF14 and play Eureka a game within a game its dope.
Are you one of the people who helps players get their BA clear? I'm currently working towards that.
@@lens_hunter I am not but they are awesome ppl u should hop on the discord. They helped me get my clear after failing like 5 times lol.
What amazed me with Bozjah is the difficulty of critical engagement and raids you have to do. I remember dying so many times at the beginning while the rest of the players were avoiding every mecanics. It makes me think that the average player of FF is a way better player than the average WoW player because SE isn't actually afraid of giving us challenging and punishing content in a grind.
One of the things I found most rewarding about Bozja was going from being the person needing rez's to being the person winning a duel. I hadn't even done many extremes or any savage content at that point. Bozja teaching me mechanics--and players being so positive during it--was what pushed me into trying harder stuff.
I don't know if I could say its true about the *average* player (there are some pretty bad players out there) but there's a pretty good possibility that the midcore types might be better than their WoW counterparts.
i don't know i the average FF player is inherently better, just that the FF design philosophy involves constantly re-using mechanics players have already seen so the learning curve isn't so steep. There's very little that will truly surprise you in a non-ultimate boss fight so long as you've played through the entire game, so even if you're fighting a new boss you can pretty accurately guess at what's going on most of the time.
It's hard to quantify if the average XIV player is "better" than the average WoW player. For every two players on point, I always encounter another who just has no clue right after, especially as of late. There's even lots of players who manipulate their gear score to chronically run the easiest content in roulettes ad nauseum, which forces everybody to run them constantly instead of higher level content that asks a bit more of you.
In fairness, Final Fantasy doesn't rely on add-ons and provides mostly consistent telegraphs that players can learn instead, which in turn fosters more independent and - as a result - more capable players.
I would love to see Mike’s view on Eureka, and more importantly, BA. Quite possibly the most unique dungeon in the entire game. Any chance?
He said he will eventually do all content in FF, so probably yes
BA?
Eureka is kinda ultra easy right now sadly. I loved it when it came out (anemos and apgos) hated it when it got more and more easy.
@@Luxy_st Baldesion Arsenal. It is the dungeon that can have up to 56 players at once that you do going through Eureka. I've never done it, as I didn't do Eureka until doing a bit of it recently.
@@semiramisubw4864 I mean if u play with ppl its easy but i did a lot of solo grinding and i enjoyed it a lot especially pagos which everybody hates its always fun learning how to traverse that area without dying.
I feel like a tonne of WoW's systematic problems feel like they stem from Blizzard not having faith in their content being fun. A lot of the systems/zones/grinds people have pushed back on recently could have, at the very least been seen as 'okay' side activities that some people would just go and do for fun. Blizzard need to learn to incentivise people to do content just for the fun of it again, for rewards that aren't linked to power whatsoever, and that are more lasting (Mage Tower etc). I feel like WoW is at it's best when the end game pillars are closer to being self-sufficient content wise (not being propped up by non-endgame systems) and the rest of the game is designed to just be fun... Not a series of obstacles to be put in the way of people wanting to be optimal.
It's not that it's no faith in the content. It's no faith in the community when you read what is being screamed over the past decade or two. Which essentially comes down to wanting things in the open world that gives power equal to Mythic but at the same time not "obligatory" for mythic to do it.
You ever think they just don’t wanna do their jobs anymore especially after constant backlash caused by their own arrogance and ignorance? Cause that’s what it looks like.
I would add that Blizz approach to development and design of WoW is extremely close to utility application development. As I work in this area to an extent it seriously reeks of "make it as efficient as possible, each functionality must be native, streamlined and utilized - otherwise it's a waste of money". WoW is an application in it's core and some mentality certainly can be carried over but this philosophy is seriously wrong when it comes to games. WoW started off as very opposite of it.
You can say all games are just bunch of mechanics embedded into a visual medium but I compare it to music - you can write craziest shit on music sheets but at the end of day all that really matters is how it sounds when it's played.
@@faelirra I mean that is why FFXIV can be the way it is. Something Mike might not have noticed yet, is with his definition of casual, in FFXIV you can get to within 10 ilvls of the very top. Meanwhile in WoW it is like 30ilvls behind so there is a huge difference.
i think the problem is the people making final decisions on WoW content are either of the decidedly 'sweaty' mindset, or barely play at all and are just looking at 'engagement metrics'. There's basically nobody involved who really considers the casual player.
FF goes out of it's way to make sure it's not just a game for the top 10%... WoW, well, their lead designer comes from a guild named 'elitist jerks'...
The driving force behind so much of the game's content is fun. That's it. That's why it's such an amazing game.
The first several expansions don't really seem driven by fun. It felt like I was a fulltime delivery boy for dozens of hours, teleporting across the world constantly just to talk to someone, to only turn around and do it again. Some story beats are good, but there's so much dated fluff just to get to the endgame.
@@Ditronus. A mistake people make when starting 14 is focusing super hard on the end game and it spoils their fun of previous content.
@@Ditronus. There is a massive difference in mentality between FFXIV and WoW. WoW is meaningless until "the endgame"; levelling is just a long prelude the actual game starting. That's not the mentality of FFXIV, and it's a mentality that WoW migrants, like myself, need to get over if we're going to enjoy FFXIV for what it is -- which is not the same as WoW.
@@peregrine5327 yes ARR is soo FUN
@@peregrine5327 nah I’ve played WoW but not heavy. FFXIV is a movie with a little bit
of well designed fight scenes. But it’s like 70% cutscenes. Y’all FF players need to stop acting like it’s not. I have never played a game where I have to teleport and read or watch something 10x before I can actually start killing stuff.
The fact that we're in a brand new expansion and Bozja is *still* relevant and useful and content players regularly engage in shows how well designed it is.
i only set foot in Bozja after i finish EW, and i admit, itis addicting
@@Aaron.Arcanum oh yeah I went in to level my reaper day 1 before msq. It was a murderfest of reapers and sages hilarious
I absolutely *hated* Bozja when I started because it felt so overwhelming, but then I started figuring out how the system works, and what do you know, it's fun as all hell.
PotD too. you get CURRENT TOMESTONEES FROM IT
FF XIV nailed keeping all old content relevant in general IMO.
Having gone through the full Bozja Relic grind (3 times), here's my points on it for people that may be interested.
1) The fact that you don't need to play as the job that corresponds to your weapon is fantastic. To get the items to drop, all you need is to have the relevant quests active. I spent time levelling Monk and Summoner while doing the first major item grind for my Red Mage and White Mage weapons.
2) Learning where the grinds can overlap is key to streamlining this stuff. This mainly kicks in near the end though. The last two steps when doing a run for any weapon past your first can be done simultaneously through Delubrum Reginae. The first time through doesn't have any overlap though, for obvious reasons.
3) The grinds are (mostly) future-proofed. Each repeatable grind has methods to obtain each item without the need to do anything in Bozja, or will have methods that yield more than one of the item you'd be after. For example, the first grind can be done through Fates in Bozja OR by doing Fates in regular Heavensward areas. The exception for me is the Timeworn Artefacts. While they can be gotten from Palace of the Dead, the drop rate for the item is really low, while a Delubrum run yields 3 of the item every single run.
4) There are steps (and item grinds) that only need to be done during the process of getting your first weapon. While these grinds can be annoying as hell (Looking at you, Zadnor Grind), the fact that once you've done them, you never need to do them again is a fucking motivator and a half. Even then, they're also future-proofed, just like the repeatable steps. Hell, one of the one-off grinds actually REQUIRES you to grind outside of Bozja.
5) The Zadnor Grind I mentioned a minute ago is the worst step of any grind, bar none. 6 items, 20 of each. 180 items in total. The useful thing is that to complete the story of Bozja, you need to hit Rank 25 so you can do the final raid for the storyline. USE THAT REQUIREMENT TO YOUR ADVANTAGE. The Zadnor Grind can give you items from doing Fates and Critical Engagements in each of it's three sections. I got past it by using the Fates and Critical Engagements to build my Rank up as I got the items. When I hit Rank 25, I immediately dove out of Bozja and started doing 8 man raids to get the rest. Thankfully, it only has to be done while sorting out the first Relic Weapon. It will take a while to do, took me 2 weeks. Once you get past it, you will feel the weight lift from your shoulders, and it is SO worth the satisfaction that it's over.
Tldr
You can set yourself up a spread sheet and work on a weapon at each stage, simultaneously, so that nothing you do goes to waste. It's still a grind, but it makes doing additional weapons go really fast.
The first half which are For want of memory, the will to resist, and Change of Arms can easily be farmed while leveling alts in Southern Front.
You forgot to mention that for relic grind, Bozja is just one of the sources of materials needed, it gives you alternative source for every step if I remember correctly, so if you didn't want to grind in bozja you could do dungeons, raids or FATEs (depending on which step it was on) :)
That was the stupidest system they've ever added. Totally devalued relics.
Finding 14 respecting my time was such a breath of fresh air in a market oversaturated by FOMO and time gated stuff
exactly the thing drawn me the most in the game is actually the game telling me do whatever you want no time to play for a week? doesnt matter the stuff doesnt run away do it when your back. im not missing out on anything i can just play whenever i feel like playing wich is the best thing to ever happen to me in an mmo.
It feels so good, I don't even care if I don't cap my 450 weekly tomestones. And the best part is I will play Elden Ring 100% focus for 1 or 2 weeks without any remorse or need to log into FFXIV, and that in an MMO is PRICELESS.
I've only found two popular MMO's that actively do this, FFXIV and Guild Wars 2
I dunno dude, i did up to Stormblood with everyone hyping me up and telling me ”ah the boring part is over soon”.
A game that has a 100h boring intro is not respecting your time at all. Anyways, HW is massivly overrated, it was okay. But if I wanna watch a good story ill just watch a movie instead. If HW was a movie it would get a 4.9 on imdb, watchable when ure bored.
I think wow being so bad has lowered peoples expectations of a good story, but FF story is bad and that is an objective take tbh
About the mmo aspect of the game, really doesn’t feel like an mmo. Endgame is basically like WoD and still people are praising it. Raid, ERP or log out.
@@shoobror8291 always a shame seeing people like you cause you clearly just got whipped up in the hype and burnt out without even interacting with the game. Hope you find an mmo you enjoy bud, won't miss you tho lmao
Preach should take a look into DR Savage, as one of the two only contents with "perma" death in FF ... yeah you can rez but you are super limited by how much rezzes you can carry and how often they fail. Also the reward for clearing it is a 100% personal mount drop, just like in BA
What's nice is that both BA and DRS still have a small but very active portion of the community running them (at least on my data center, yours may vary). While I still wouldn't call them "easy" by any means, having some veteran players calling things out on voice comms relieves a lot of the pressure and, in my opinion, makes the content a lot more fun.
@@ShermTank7272 Rez limit mechanic, double tap doom, duel, self formed only, full instance wipe and boss model tell mechanics. Shits hardddddd
@@tyty8484 If i remember is 3 stacks for Doom, but they don't go away after 1 minute.
@@JaquetaoSlayer 2 stacks, but yes they do go away.
@@tyty8484 they don't go away until the boss dies, and it's 3 for the first bosses, and 2 for Queen and TA.
( doesn't really matter on TA since temperature is 999999 damage)
Oh my god, is that your new office? It looks fucking amazing, dude!
Edit: One thing about duels that I feel is worth criticizing is their rarity. If you *really* enjoy difficult solo content, you have to wait for the right skirmish, then complete that skirmish with a gold rating and without taking hits, and then you have to hope you get the duel if more people sign up for it. If you don't get it, you have to do steps 1 and 2 again. That sucks. And if the person who gets the duel immediately fails, that chance is just wasted. Same if you get it and immediately fail. And people *do* try and make you feel bad about that. It's happened to me when I was completely new to Bozja and got into a duel, but had no idea what I was in for.
I hope they make more difficult solo content, but I also hope they won't make it nearly as restrictive as the duels. I understand the appeal of the duels, and them being open world, but the fact that I will likely be taking someone else's spot, along with people watching me during the fight, that stresses me out like crazy. So I hope that if we ever see something like them again, they will be more accessible. Not easier, just more accessible.
That's fair. I never queued for the duels when they spawned despite qualifying for them most of the time because 1. I was just trying to farm mettle and 2. I knew I was going to lose and didn't want the weight of people being disappointed on my shoulders.
At the same time, I've never personally seen people be deliberately toxic to people who fail the duels. There's some sad, some upset, but I've not really noticed much of any real aggro from other players directed towards people who fail the duel. Could just be my server or the times I was online.
note, the notoriety system was added to the zone as a pity system, as you don't get chosen for the duel you accumulate notoriety which eventually will make you be chosen
@@MythrilZenith I didn't have active aggression, but definitely passive aggression. It still made me feel bad, despite not really even understanding what I did wrong. Just someone explaining very thoroughly and way past the point that I understood what I had done, that I had taken someone else's shot at that duel.
You'll never see active aggression in FFXIV anyway, because people are too scared of being reported and penalized. But that doesn't mean they don't find different ways of making sure you know that they think you fucked up.
Yeah, I got into a duel once, realized I had no clue what to do, and felt really bad I took it from someone else
@@neobahumuth6 The notoriety system is an improvement, but you can still miss out on a duel multiple times. Having to wait for one shot at a duel for over an hour is pretty damn crazy.
3 raids, nononono, you forgot Emperor Valrus. That one has a extreme as well.
+ savage
True, he did, but he knows and unlocked it.
Often times I find that the people who complain the most about areas like Eureka and Bozja are people whose first and only MMO was XIV. The fact they are free to complain about these areas as much as they want without needing to step one toe in them is enough proof that these players don't know how good they have it.
They are good, but bozja wasn't handled well....like seriously, quite a bit of broken promises that left a sour taste in my mouth.
On the flip - I find a lot of OG MMO players that crave grinds hated Bozja and, overall FF14 lately. I have a few in my circle and they constantly complain they are bored because the game doesn't force them to be on daily to get things done.
@@AsatsuyaH At that point, they might as well just not play. I'm not sure where the obsession of a game being like a job came from, but if you have to find a reason to play a game, you probably don't actually want to play it. There's literally so many other games to play. It's not like they're going to miss much if they unsub and wait a couple months for more new content to release.
@@AsatsuyaH Yoshi-P is pretty open about he doesn't want to design XIV to dominate people's lives. He even openly says in live letters, "Finish all the content you want to do? Feel free to unsub, we'll be here when the next patch drops if you want to come check it out."
@@AsatsuyaH but that’s the great thing about the game you can do other stuff. I have been playing lost ark since launch and don’t feel like I’m being left behind in FF
I'll say this: Bozja and Eureka are basically two different takes on the same concept, and while I would say that Bozja evolves from Eureka, I find that they also suit two different types of player.
Eureka is a very slow, grind heavy experience. It's been extremely nerfed these days from when it first came out, but it's still very much a grind. It's also a completely internal, closed-system grind - aside from relic weapons and dying your job armor, none of the stuff you do in Eureka affects the rest of the game. Because of this, Eureka doesn't have much utility. However, the slower pace of Eureka combined with its internal rewards means that Eureka is much more inherently social: you have to form parties to join the notorious monster train, players will often chat with each other between spawns, and there's a more general sense of community. Basically, Eureka openly fosters a multiplayer experience, which makes it great to do with communities or friends. This is accentuated by the relatively small community who does Eureka. You feel like a tight knit band of buddies.
Bozja is the rapid pace, solo-player take on the concept. The rewards are not system internal, meaning you can enjoy Bozja's rewards outside of Bozja (namely, leveling your alt jobs). The Critical Engagements also spawn a lot faster than in Eureka, meaning that you always have something to do and the grind is very rapid. However, this also means that the sense of community is somewhat lost. While you can easily clear Bozja by yourself, most people don't talk in chat except to ask for information on raids, and most parties disband the second that you don't need them anymore. You feel more like a cog in a machine or a fish in a whole school swimming towards the same destination -- part of the crowd but not connected. However, there's always a huge sense of enjoyment with seeing your grinding rewarded.
So, I've generally found that people who are more concerned with rewards and doing content solo enjoy Bozja much more, while people who enjoy social aspects and grinding for grind's sake enjoy Eureka more. Neither player is wrong, they just enjoy different things. It's also why I think that Eureka shouldn't have a leveling system built into it (Heaven-on-High exists already), as it would negate the social aspects of Eureka, which the community wouldn't appreciate.
this is exactly right even if you arnt hunting nm even the bunny farmers socialize a bit it's a cool place to hang out when you dont have other content to do and i remember after i finished my bozja relic i went straight back to eureka and was like "i'm home" I like bozja for what it offers in progression but i like eureka for what it offers me that bozja cant which is a sense of community.
great explanation
Great explanation, i did Bozja when it was current content in ShB and now im slowly tackling Eureka
I really enjoyed Eureka before EW release (because I'm used to grind from previously playing Runescape) but at least on Chaos there was often Hydatos drama caused by people instapulling FATEs so that aspect kinda got annoying. I personally prefer that those issues are mostly avoided in Bozja because of systems in place.
@@Ankfank you could argue that that is part of the fun, we dont have that happen as often on aether but it does occasionally same with hunts. my philosophy for "early pulls on nms" is if u cared that much about it you woulda helped spawn it so u'd already be there. i personally dont early pull but if im farming NM im helping spawn them.
Hello Mike, the best thing you can be doing is *exactly* what you're doing right now. Rather than trying to work within the WoW community, by being outside it; and showing exactly what you *have been trying to tell Blizzard for the last 4-5+ years* [player choice & playstyle > how Blizzard wants players to choose & how a 'class should be played], by highlighting how other game designers have built a game, *and* by highlighting exactly WHY it is so excellent, you can move WoW back to where it should be. Keep this up. Player choice > Whatever a Game Designer thinks is *important- because it's important to me.*
Unrelated to the video but I hope Preach continues his plan to playthrough older entries of Final Fantasy. I'd love to see what he thinks of FF Tactics, just played through it for the first time myself and it was awesome. Especially after doing the storm blood alliance raids! Now I get all the juicy references.
He's already said he's doing FFX soon.
The original FFT is my #1 game of all time. I'm crossing my fingers that Preach and/or Pyro get to it at some point
Man, i really, really l, really want to see mike interviewing Yoshi-p and the FF devs. I hope you guys can get it on the next press event for the game.
Given the effort they put in to reach even new arrivals like Rich and Asmon, I don't doubt that Preach will get his turn when the next Media Tour rolls around, assuming he's still playing by then.
I have 100% confidence yoshiP will have a chat with Mike because they have talked to new ff14 players like Asmon and even talked to smaller ones in the last year media tour. Even if Mike plays the other game yoshiP would not really mind it since he also encourages everyone to play other game not only FF14
Wasn't Mike the top FFXIV twitch streamer after Endwalker released? I'm confident Yoshi-P will have an interview with him the next time they do the press event.
I expect that to be such a grown up, fascinating and heartwarming interview...
16:02 Relic is ALWAYS behind raid bis until the very last patch. Relic is always catchup and content for it/upgrades will come out after/between savage patches.
First Relic was used in Raid. Which is a better system imo. Think it's kinda whack you get this new weapon with nothing to kill.
@@Ravnesss I mean there's nothing stopping you from going back into Savage and Ultimates with your new relic. Having the relic separate from raid content means no one is forced to have to grind one out if they want to raid. And at the same time, people who are not interested in raiding can still get a super powerful weapon. It's a win-win for both parties.
@@HewieAlbino Getting a upgraded weapon to kill old content I sleep. getting a upgraded weapon to kill current content I wake.
One thing mike forgot to mention that he liked about the content is that compared to the msq you are actually able to have extented periods of time to practice the class you are on, single dps and aoe rotations etc.
I'm kind of sad Mike didn't know about the fact that you can grind relic materials in heavensward zone fates. The dev made high level players go back to low level zones. The dev populate the low level zones so that sprouts wouldn't feel lonely while doing fates, at least they tried anyways.
12:25 I heard this story, and all I could think was, "If this was something in WoW, all you would hear from the crowd would be people shitting on you if you failed, because now YOU kept them from getting THEIR buff." It makes me so sad that I think of WoW's community so poorly, but I just cannot trust a random WoW player to be decent anymore. I want to, but I can't. :(
Fair but if that was a thing in WoW then that buff would be mandatory to do something else or to save more time
It's kind of already the case in bozja, but mostly for hardcore people. Getting duels is pretty time consuming and RNG, and if someone else takes it and loses because they didn't bring the basic preparations, it can feel like you were robbed if you're prepared and researched but just lost the roll. Notoriety does improve this significantly though, but it's still a grind for it.
@@sauceinmyface9302 really not as much of a grind as you're making out. Specific 4th legion enemies in each zone spawns the skirmish that when completed spawns the CE that when done without getting hit will spawn a duel. If you don't get your duel you get a notoriety which eventually guarantees you get in. There is no rng besides if multiple people complete the CE flawlessly in which case they all have earned the right to take part. But again, due to notoriety you can guarantee your selection if you have consistently been unlucky
Thanks for the great Video Preach/Chris and everytime solid, really fair opinion with critique and praise! Very happy you enjoy FFXIV! Enjoy your stay in Mexico, you and your whole family.
Eureka is kind of polarizing, you either love it or you hate it. I fall into the former camp, and I like to go spend an hour or two in Eureka when it's busy (need more relic weapons/armor/mounts). There's really nothing for you there if you're looking for progression (other than progression on the weapons/armor, and its own progression), but a ton for you if you're capped and looking for something else to do (say, if you've finished Bozja).
I have to say, when Eureka is busy, it is one of the best parts of the game. I myself like to play healer and go around rezzing people (since it's a big loss if you die and don't get rezzed). Baldesion Arsenal is quite a raid, with a very desirable mount at the end of it.
Lots of people disagree with all this, and just call it a boring grind. They're not wrong. But if you're into Eureka, you know what I mean.
I felt both eureka and bozja was boring grinds, everyone is different 🤷🏼♂️
@@jesperjohansson9857 I got into Eureka at the end of Shadowbringers (in other words, when we had lots of free time) and it wasn't uncommon to have over a hundred people in Pagos farming NMs. That might have skewed my perception of Eureka a bit.
What's amazing is that when you finally get outside of wow and try out other games, you realize just how poorly wow doesn't the same MMORPG game mechanics that everyone else does. It can be a culture shock to realize games like FFXIV are more interested in your quality of game experience and believe that if they make it fun, you will play it more. It isn't just FFXIV either, though they are particularly good at it. ESO, GW2, etc just have better approaches to the same task. Even just the simple concept of how you gather loot off a mob is better in almost mmorpg I play and I play a lot of them lol. The main reason FFXIV is better than wow at something like this is they look at how WoW did it and they try to do it better, that and they focus on the fun factor for the gamer. I am holding out hope for the day that WoW does the same as people still love the Warcraft universe, they just hate the implementation.
well said!
That used to be what WoW was known for, back in the early days. They weren't innovators, they took all the concepts other MMOs had done and polished them and made a great overall experience. At some point that was lost. Now they can't seem to hold one lesson in their head from a single expansion to the next. Look at Nazjatar and Mechagon from BfA. Mechagon had a bunch of optional stuff, secret stuff, jetpacks, and had very little relevance to the endgame. Nazjatar was a grindy daily zone where min-maxers had to go over and over again, day in day out. Mechagon was much better received. Next expansion we get Korthia, and which of those two zones does it end up resembling?
What amazes me the most is the hype and loss of own opinion in regards to World of Warcraft.... WoW is not a bad game, the pace, gameplay, instances, feeling and raids are and will be unbeaten for a long time. FF XIV Combat always feels clunky and not a direct, ESO has a horrible rotation with bar-switching and combat feels kinda dull, GW2 has nice gameplay but it looks and feels old, and the PvE-Part just is not good.
The beautiful part of all this is:
You don't have to feel bad about skipping Eureka one bit. If you want to give it a go some day, then it will always be waiting for you.
eureka can 100% be skipped. it has an independent leveling system separate from the character level. its only for poetics, relic weapons, minions mounts and the raid at the very end, its a glamor zone and has no relation to a 'catch up' zone.
It has a story of its own, though.
...And one you get an immediate pay-off for at the start of Endwalker.
I really love Bozja... Now you do need to be at least level 71 to enter Bozja. It levels you up to 80 and item synchs everyone to 430 - so you start with a level playing field. It's great because it lets you preview your skills while working toward unlocking them fully. I think you've gone over a lot of the major systems in play so cheers :)
There's a lot of ways to level in XIV, so the "grind" doesn't feel so bad
Roulettes - Particularly MSQ and Frontlines (min level 30 for Frontlines)
Palace of the Dead/Heaven on High - Levels 1-60 and 61-70 respectively
Eureka/Bozja - Level 61-70 and 71-80 respectively.
Eureka is the Proto-Bozja and requires a heavier grind toll. Eureka has 4 different zones, and you can tell they were listening to player feedback as you see the changes each zone brings to the table and how Bozja took that critique and ran with it. You can even see how the Southern Front and Zadnor differ as well. Southern Front used to be more grind heavy until they upped the mettle received from it.
You can also see how they handle Relics differently too. Eureka is the ONLY place you can gain materials for and develop your level 70 relic weapon. Bozja is still required to unlock the full potential of your level 80 relic, but if you don't like grinding in Bozja, they allow you to get the materials via. fates and dungeons in earlier parts of the game - which also encourages veteran players to revisit older content. *Chefs kiss*
I think its actually that the design brief frames those design decisions differently:
1. How do we make this so that the players will WANT to play it?
2. How are we going to make the zone rewarding to come back to consistently?
In other words, they're actually making a game. Not some gamer subscription conversion machine.
15:58 As a note on this note, relics aren't really the same ilvl as savage weapons. Bozja relics released at i485 in patch 5.25 when the current e8s raid weapon was i505, and relics don't overtake raid weapons and become BiS until the X.5 patches (i535 raid weap was 5.4, i535 bozja weap was 5.55). So it's not really a question of just being "not considered required", since it'd be worse than raid weaps until after anyone who probably cares much about BiS has already cleared the raids. They're mainly just glamour weaps + weaps that help you kill stuff faster in the following expansion.
I agree, but the relic becomes the BiS, and they are monster weapons for ultimate content. So your time is still rewarded even is glamour doesnt matter. I love that.
Good Vid. I don't particularly like Bozja (I preferred Eureka but not by much) but I never felt *bad* doing them because I never ever felt like my time was being wasted.
I think you could argue that FFXIV has multiple end games. Traditionally we only think of end games as raiding, but since everything outside of the story is optional that leaves players the freedom to deep dive into whichever aspect of the game they'd like. You want to catch all of the fish? That's probably an even bigger challenge than Savage raiding, honestly. Getting the Necromancer title, collecting all of the mounts and minions, making it rich on the market, etc. Other games have those gameplay categories too but I feel like you're significantly more free to pursue them here
FF14 consistently has so much stuff you can do but don't feel obligated to do and I love that because it removes the stress. I have a love/hate relationship with Bozja myself but because of the ease of entry and the fact you can buy a bunch of stuff you need if you don't want to farm, I have full resistance weapons on almost all my jobs just by having the quests open and doing my dailies outside Bozja. I do think the last Bozja instance needs better rewards since no one does it anymore but overall, I love things like Bozja that you can just hop into for XP and a change of pace.
every time I see a ff14 video I just say "damn, I wish blizz would make everything account wide. sure would be nice to have fun with alts again".
Actually really funny how the developers were successful with this not mandatory zone. After the launch the first zone they said that to their surprise 50% of the active playerbase engaged with the content regurarly which was surprising to them, they were expecting less. I really enjoyed both Bozja and Zadnor, the raids and CEs were fun, and it is still good for leveling alts. Thanks for the good review!
I like how currencies are suddenly a good thing after the community loses it over having like four in SL.
The difference that having a Game Director that is on the company board (Yoshi) vs a Game Director that takes order from money people that only care about the Mau's and total player spends etc...
it's also worth mentioning the reward for Bozja, as Preach mentioned these days it's a glamour piece, however back when the content dropped it was a weapon that has a special model with cool upgradable particle effects that can be used for glamour/transmog, but also that weapon is 1 halfstep below what would be the equivalent of a mythic raid drop. So like you CAN farm it out if you want what's probably second BiS (maybe first, depending on how secondary stats work out). If you're struggling with the current tier, or just don't plan on pushing through it it's 100% an option for basically as good. If you are a high end raider it's entirely optional and basically just cosmetic.
isnt the double lego from WoW no longer tied to the zone? You just have to complete the week5 story quest.
When Mike does Eureka he is going to see all of the improvements they changed for Bozja.
But ya Bozja is fun I completed 5 relic weapons and leveled a bunch of alts through it. I probably won’t do anymore aside from maybe duels or DR savage because I have everything else from there.
Sounds like scarcity philosophy (WoW) vs abundance philosophy (FF14).
Scarcity-based designs revolve around limiting and funneling players actions. While abundance-based encourages the player to explore stuff as they grow curious.
It's not just about the amount of content available. Content being optional is crucial. People like different things, no one should be forced to do any content. The content should be fun on their own merit.
WoW had some content patches where they released a ton of content at once, more content than a normal player could do. But then when players started endlessly grinding the content for the gear rewards, Blizzard put a limit to it. It has been all over WoW since they started doing it. Weekly honor cap, weekly mythics, table resources, residues as so on. All because no matter how much content they put out, WoW is still a game based on scarcity and time-gated power rewards. Hardcore players will always push the limits to get their power upgrades faster than anyone else, as that gives them an edge.
To fix WoW the devs need to completely change their design philosophy.
Been watching you for years Preach.
I left WoW in 2019 after 15 years of playing.
I've been *very* casually playing FF since then, still doing Shadowbringer's MSQ.
I'm floored at how different the feel of the game is; its everything you've said. The design was focused on 'fun' before anything else. They are just trusting that people will keep playing, and guess what, they do! Simply making a fun game and *trusting* your players, (and trusting your product) is the correct way to earn loyalty! Leading by pleasure instead of guilt and fear, who would have thought?!
It makes me realize how insecure some of the system designers must be over at Blizz (at least now). They are so afraid to lose attention, they keep gripping tighter, and more of us keep slipping through their fingers.
What's really cool is this is only ONE of the optional types of endgame paths that open to you and help you get caught up or just earn rewards. I have the title for getting all the prestige buffs, the special motorcycle from all the field notes, and all available cosmetics from Zadnor and Bozja but it never felt like a chore because I was having fun and wanted to be there. Some of the notes are more annoying rare drops but I was fine being there even if I wanted to pull my hair out sometimes since it was my choice to get some cool stuff!
I think for a lot of people that hate the Bozja type content its because they're trained from other games to believe their forced so it doesn't really click you don't have to be there. The first relic is also the longest and after you do one the rest are faster since it skips the longest steps.
Bozja is fantastic. I used it to get the amaro mount in ShB, and I'm sitting on 13 relics with another about half finished.
Wow: design a reward that you get at the end and put roadblock on the way
FF: design multiple rewards on the way and offers roadblocks if you want to grind more for achivements etc
An example of how many activities in FFXIV. I have cleared Savages & Ultimates but never gone to Bozja. There are just so many things offered to player to do in FFXIV. Glad to see Preach highlighting these aside from “endgame” content so many content creators focus on.
Took me 2 weeks to get ready for Savage tier and it wasn't even grinding it was just first Playthrough for the story, then reclear fast next week and I was done. Then 4 weeks it took my static to finish Savage and now I'm basically done and I don't even log anymore unless I wanna level alts and for reclear day for the savage mount.
I got time to play other things, it's a nice break and I still enjoy the casual content here and there to unlock the role quests and see the story for that.
I really loved the story of Bozja, the ending is very nice. Is just what I seek in some stories about war.
Just a small thing: Eureka is NOT a catch up zone. You can only do it at 70, not 61-70 like Bozja is 71-80, it gives no exp, and was primarily just there for the relic weapon, and some semi-decent glamour sets
I think the biggest takeaway here is how the devs take feedback into creating the next version of something. This is the third "catch up" zone we have had in XIV starting with Diadem into Eureka and then Bozja. While the original version of diadem is no longer available, there are videos of it out there. Each time the zone failed to lived up to player expectations and the next time it was improved. Rather than in WoW we have had this style of "catchup zone" since Mists of Pandaria where one could argue was the best version of the zone, and the developers have tried to maximize time spent rather than the fun and usefulness of the zone into what we have seen in the most recent wow zone.
^^ I do find it funny that Preach loves Krile and skipped Eureka - which is 100% Krile.
Tldw;
Everything is easy, you are spoonfed items, you breathe you get something. Plus, FF14 is not WoW.
Side note:
This shift in the MMO space made me realize why FF14 shines right now more than ever. It is the opposite of WoW. Literally... I really dont see the appeal of paying a sub for a story where you can just watch the whole damn thing on RUclips. It's the journey not the destination doesnt work due to your character just nodding and you go map to map for hours so that NPCs can talk about something happening and your character only nods and cheers. What a fun experience. I can see people enjoying their time on Eorzea this game has a lot more than just the story but I'm so sick of people shoving the story up my ass every time this game comes up.
Btw, Wow had Brawler's guild. NO ONE GAVE A SHIT.
FF14 has their own equivalent of brawler guild which is Blue Mage Carnivale, god its actual very fun solo content where you can use boss ability to make it broken as possible
I know a lot of blue mage community are waiting for next update patch right now
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We got him.
I've always been a fan of yours, Preach. I loved your WoW videos for years and I honestly quit WoW before BFA came out. I quit at the end of legion because I wasn't happy with what I saw. I decided to look your content up again and found this video....it's convinced me to play FF14. Everything I watched from this made me think it would be a blast to try. I'll probably buy it and try it this weekend. I hope all is well with you man!
The interesting thing about Bozja buffs from a design standpoint si 1) since they are bound to Bozja/Zadnor, the devs don't have to worry about breaking the game, and can have fun and also 2) because they have buffed you so much, the devs don't really have to be fair. Bozja mobs basically don't leash, so you can get trains. Bozja CR bosses are not nice with tier mechanics because you are supposed to be buffed. In general the encounters keep you on your toes for what otherwise could be mindless grinding. And, as Mike says, if you don't want to, you can go get gear other ways anyway. All you are really losing by not doing Bozja is easy job levelling, a cool story and relics for ShB, which are not the BiS items anyway and are just cool looking. And even nicer, once you get a relic of each tier, if all you care about is the cosmetics you can just buy the skins for all the other relics at that tier. I didn't do Eureka, though I might go back, because I wanted to get ready for EW, but I was overall impressed with Bozja.
awesome video!
you be surpirsed how many new players who joined us during the HYPE of Shadowbringer, most never heard of Eureka, Bozjan and even Binding Coils Of Bahamut.
Hope this brings those players to those contents :)
It's more than not forcing players to be there. FFXIV actually gives casual players a path to BiS or near-BiS gear. The raiders get there first through Savage but everyone can eventually get there through Tomestone gear upgrades and the Relic weapon. FFXIV doesn't leave 99% of the player base feeling left out in regards to player power.
I will point out that it's easy for sprouts to get blocked at Delubrum Reginae right now. Obviously Mike avoided this because he had a group to run with him but your average player is going to sit in queue for 10 minutes and then zone in to a group that is likely fewer than 8 players (possibly even solo) and they will probably be unable to complete the run. PF can be really hit or miss with getting people to join as well. The only sure way to get through it right now is to go find the discord that organizes runs for your DC which is a less than ideal solution.
I love vuln stacks as a concept, because they mean fights get to be more complex because you're given room to make mistakes.
Mike this was a FANTASTIC video. I'm halfway thru Bozja and didn't even really know about half the shit that you mentioned. We are so stoked to have you making content for FF nowadays.
Brilliant, Mike! Whole Heartedly agree. such a different approach to this stuff.
Bozja is pretty much the only viable leveling route for alt classes after MSQ, or if you have a static leveling group dungeons would likely be faster. It's fun, but gets tiring after 10+ levels of grinding the fates. But it's still better than what was around prior to Eureka/Bozja.
Plus unlocking Bozja is a pain for new players if the season/expansion cycle is in the middle of the content (e.g. less players online) because of the required raids to finish the questline.
When they introduced the Mission Board in WoD and saw people clicking and logging in all the time like rats in a crack experiment to make sure they were maximizing rewards, the folks at Blizzard saw dollar signs. Since then, they've tried to include something like that at every step, not taking into account that eventually, the dopamine hits start to weaken over time until eventually people are just exhausted and angry. And then, it all just comes crashing down.
I personally enjoyed Bozja a lot even though i havent won any duels and got the field notes mount yet, i made like 5 relics already too!
Currently doing Eureka slowly
What I like about 14 is essentially, if you don't wanna do certain content, you don't have to. The only mandatory content is MSQ, which I find enjoyable. The only small thing I wish they did was make Coils MSQ, the same way they did for Crystal Tower. Not for me since I've long finished it, but I feel like new players are just missing out on something special because Coils is the absolute hardest content in ARR and new players might struggle to find groups to run it with, or a 90 friend to carry them through it.
Sadly coils of bahamut being too hard is why it isn't MSQ currently
oof the ff bias is still there, coming back in some months again to see if anything changes
I did Bozja towards the end of Shadowbringers. I remember I was running into some ilvl walls while doing the patch MSQ content and loving the fact that right away I had options for dealing with that gear problem. I could grind dungeons or work on the raids or even just buy crafted gear on the market board. I ended up succumbing to the siren's call of a glowing resistance weapon and a cool looking jacket from Bozja. On my quest for that weapon I ended up being given even more options on how I wanted to earn it. I could grind things out in Bozja, or I could revisit old fates, dungeons, and raids. It turned into one rabbit hole after another of fun stories that I missed while hyper focusing on the MSQ. And because they were all one of multiple options on how I could work on whatever particular part of the quest I was on it felt freeing. I was in control of my fun. I could switch at any time to another option and still be progressing towards the same goal. In my eyes Bozja is one of the greatest examples of not only giving the players options, but also of keeping older content relevant. And after recently doing Eureka I can see how FFXIV's dev team learns from and builds on what they learn about things that work and don't work. I'm excited to see what they do for Endwalker and how it continues to refine things.
I actually didn't unlock Bozja until after I cleared EW. I just never got around to doing the Ivalice raids, and really should have. Glad I still have Eureka and Bozja to explore
Same
You mentioned Systems Mike, and there are actually a few I'd be curious to hear your take on. Not necessarily something you'd need to stream, but as someone so involved in the WoW systems, I'd be curious for your thoughts on the Adventure Squadrons (One of the things implemented I suspect in ARR or Heavenward, so obviously systems wise it's a bit dated) as compared to something like say trust or Retainers (some of the side systems not necessarily required for the MSQ). I'd also love your thoughts on how hard it is to "level an alt" and with you doing Dark Knight right now I imagine that won't be too tough a thing to really have a chance to look at.
noice. thanks preach gaming for keeping the content coming.
TBH you dodged a bullet with Eureka, while it eventually gets good, it takes a while to do so, unlike Bozja which can be done in a couple days with a group, especially after the buffs.
Eureka would've taken you ages to complete and would've halted your msq prog for a while and replaced it with hours of NM camping.
I spent like a month in Eureka before the release of Endwalker and actually loved it. I loved that people grouped up more. I guess I think both areas have something to offer.
Maybe it was when I did Eureka (about 1.5 years ago) but it only took maybe 40 hours to get my weapon and upgrade the elemental gear. I did make sure I went in there during the peak hours to ensure there were at least a few dozen players in the zone to ensure constant fate churning though. It really didn't feel like a grind but, admittingly, I did not when it was released, so I do not know what it was like at the start.
Bozja was semi-time gated in the sense that it was released over multiple patches. The difference is that once that patch releases everything was available if you wanted to grind it out as fast as possible, instead of being drip fed to you over multiple weeks in 1-2 hour chunks.
The great thing about these zones is they get borrowed power gains right without breaking the rest of the game. You never lose what you gained within these alternative leveling systems (one might lose mettle, but not their ranks). You can leave the zones and come back months later and pick up right where you stopped on the alternative progression system.
I played shadowlands way less after I geared out my main, due to the long drawn out process of playing alts in shadowlands, the now mplus score that’s not account wide for the valor upgrading, just makes me not want to play my alts that much. It’s really exhausting knowing you have to grind a 2k mplus score on every alt to upgrade your gear.
Tbh Bozja, at the time of it's realese, was covered in controversy: from how it's story ended in a lore note, to SQE lying (or a mistranslation, we can't say for certain but I do remeber this) about you being able to progress one of you relics through the MSQ of bozja, to saying the relic wouldn't require bozja at all and then requiring Restiance rank 10 to even progress the second part of it....yeah, the ball got dropped. Also killing off any and all hope of the story of bozja being continued into something like a Dalmascan front (witch is what the end of the Bozja story pointed at) REALLY sucked. And it was done in a lore note and then pointed out by a dev on twitter... But like compared to a wow endgame zone it's actually really impressive (besdies the fact that it's an instance....)
So glad Mike is finding a love in FF14. Coming from WoW to 14 was such a relief and gave me back fun in my game.
A lot of FFXIV systems feel like they looked at WoW systems and listened to player feedback to try and improve them before implementing them. Things like how raids are structured to so you can queue for single encounters, how you progress your gear and so on. For some it feels somewhat safe and boring at times, but ultimately you can see why those things are the way they are.
Granted it's been ages since I've been to Eureka so I don't know if it has changed (but since the weekly challenges are still there I'd assume it's still the same) but back during Stormblood you couldn't level your classes in Eureka, it has its own leveling system which annoyed a lot of people as they now had to grind up Elevels (and there were no weekly challenges to help speed it up initially) and once that was done it was basically a forgotten level system, they learned from that and made Bozja have us at a static level but allowed us to gain experience for our classes which was pretty well received...
I worked a full time job and still managed to finish all but two of the Bozja weapons for those jobs before Endwalker dropped. Delibrum speed runs are some of the most insanely fun, over powered, high flying DPS things I've participated in . I'm now starting to pick away at the final two weapons, simply because I like being a completionist. And some day, I have to go back to Eureka.... ugh.
The best thing about bozja and eureka is since it's old content its possible to make a ton of gil there even after you have everything. It's such a flexible way of introducing content that will almost always have a fan base who plays it.
Played WOW for maybe a year, and I enjoyed lvling and doing quests and story, but once i got to max lvl, i HATED the grind of daily quests,
When i was lvling and questing i felt so free, just exploring the world, and then BOOM, you have to grind same spots over and over.
I am now plying FFXIV, and i am enjoying it. Its really hard to get used at first, it took me like 3 tries to really start plying, but now, its a BLAST.
Great video, however, I must note that Eureka is *not* a catch up zone. You don't gain normal xp there, the weapons and armor are decent at best and mainly only have a use in eureka, and you need to be level 70 at least to gain access to Eureka.
There's more to the Lost Actions than simply buffs, they can change your role entirely. There were many times where there wasn't a tank, and I just used my defense fragments to do it myself, all as a Red Mage, Monk, and Ninja. I've been a healer and a DPS as a Dark Knight and Warrior, Tanked as a White Mage, healed as a Bard. Your roles don't matter in Bozja, and it was an awesome experience in there. A place where the usual rules of the game are broken and you can just go nuts.
The best thing about Bozja, for me, was the wacky hijinks you could get up to using all the zone skills. Want to tank as a black mage? No problem. Machinist is the healer now? That works. White mage throws blood lily and instantly rips enmity off every tank in the entire zone? Totally normal! My friends and I helped run our data center's Bozja discord, and our big thing was to do irregular Lyon parties. All tank party, all healer party, all monk party (metallic yellow glamor is not optional), no job stone party (before the big nerf). It was a lot of fun figuring out just how goofy we could be and still succeed.
To be fair to "laying on the floor", I learn WAY better in raid environments if I'm able to get in there and lay on the floor a couple times. That's just me though.
This feels like a bad colour; pitting one game community against another instead of letting people just enjoy what they enjoy. It’s not a competition for the players; it’s a competition for the devs. Let the players enjoy or not enjoy whatever they want.
He's gotta get money somehow. This video was posted a day ago and already has more views than any vid he's made in the past month
Hi. Like the new studio. Hair looks like it is coming through nicely. Nice to see you doing well. Woop woop.
My fun (and annoying) grind was going for the field notes. For those new to the area and content, there's a compendium of npcs related to the bozja content, and you can collect many of their entries by doing specific skirmishes, critical engagements, and duels. Some are gimmes from doing the story, and some are drops from the raids' bosses. The reward is a flying bike of sorts, one FF12 fan will immediately recognize as the one used by Fran in that game. It's also a two seater mount, and one of the few not on the cash shop.
When you get to Savage, those Vuln Stacks are replaced with Damage Downs. Vuln stacks in savage felt like it overwhelmingly only punished healers for something they didn't do. Damage Downs are much more equitable.
Bozja when just playing through the story is pretty fun, but the moment you stop to grind is when it starts hitting the low notes... If you want some of the best rewards, it just turns into a system of sitting around the main camp waiting for Critical Engagements, and doing the raids on repeat.
Great video showing what bozja is great at! As an aside, eureka wouldn't really be classified as a catch-up zone, as it doesn't contribute any exp for your jobs outside of the zone specific leveling system. It does offer Tomestones like bosja, as well as some other aesthetic rewards still.
Bozja base is fine, but when you wanna do the field note grind, its the worst thing in the entire game.
That thumbnail tho.... *chef's kiss*
i like ff but its just doesn't hit me like wow. on wow i feel like there is always something to regardless of level. but on ff it feels like there is just phone books full of msq spam quests. dungeons are fun. but literally everything is locked behind walls of text and teleports.
On the topic of Eureka…it is definitely what you initially described. Probably about an hour of stories and HOURS of grinding.
I actually enjoyed Eureka, but went in at lvl 80 for the armor glam. I didn't think it was a way to level from 60-70?
@@melissas4874 It's not, which is partially why people just stopped going there after ShB hit.
@@blackfox4138 when I did it in October it was packed!! May just be the DC I'm in.
Ah yes Bozja where the Rez Mage is king. I spent way too much time there during the gap between 5.55 and Endwalker, got all relics, armor, mounts and such. Probably would not have spent as much time in there if Endwalker had come out in July/August like it would have had in a normal year but still had a lot of fun. Just remember to thank you Red Mages folks and pray for their Mana.